Korg R3 Synth/Vocoder a great toy for a newb

I just picked up my first synth, a Korg R3, which I bought mainly for
it's vocoder feature. I know nothing about synths and my only
keyboard (which you'll laugh about) is a Miracle I paid $49 for 10
years ago.

This keyboard has a few really good sounds. For example, if you play
the demo (accessed by shift+demo), you will hear Van Halen. I was
able to find that setting and new I can play Jump. It has some cool
sound effects on it.

Unfortunately, the quality of many of the sounds on this synth are
very poor. The percussion reminds me of the Mattel Synsonics drum kit
from 1982. Don't expect to play piano on it because the piano is
awful. I guess synths don't do these things? Some of the sound
effects like the "ocean", sound like my $9 white noise generator.

I bought a Yamaha QY10 sequencer in 1995 for $300 and it has the
sample quality is much, much better. Why do the samples on a
synthesizer today sound worse that a sequencer made 10 years ago?
Someone clue me in as I am new to synths. Seems like you could build
a dual machine and fit quality patterns on it since RAM is cheap
today. That means good quality orchestra, piano samples, etc.

All synths should come with videos on how to use them. I've been
reading the manual to learn it but what I really would like to see is
a video on how to use this thing. Is there anyone out there that
knows synths, has one of these, and would like a Paypal? I suspect a
lot of buyers will be synth newbies like me. The guy at the store
had 75 keyboards and, not surprisingly, knew little about this one.
So it will be up to you to figure it out.

This keyboard has a USB port, which is good. I installed the software
to my Mac and was able to import the edits from the keyboard. I have
not tried to dink with them as I still have to learn synth basics.

The vocoder function is pretty good, although I don't have anything to
compare it to. I was able to get a Cylon voice running without too
much effort. However, the carrier I selected has a "flanger" effect
on it I would like to get rid of and I've not been able to figure out
how! I will not be able to communicate to the Cylons until this is
remedied.

One good thing is the synth allows you to record a 7.5 second
"formant" which means you record your voice and then you don't have to
keep talking to it. First you must unlock the keyboard (shift+8) or
you will get a write protect error. When I did this it worked pretty
well but when you play it back you will hear a subtle "thump" sound at
the beginning of the recording which is an annoyance.

Other things I like. It has an arpeggiator and a latch function and
is fun to screw around with. The keyboard has octave up down buttons
that are easy to use. There are five backlit LCD screens which are
easy to access via knobs below them. It's small so it doesn't take up
much room.

Summing all this up. This is great synth for newbies to dink around
on. It's one of the few that has a vocoder on it. It's also a cheap,
entry level synth that has some very poor sound samples on it which is
a shame. If you want to just have one keyboard, this is not the one
to get. Its 8 note polyphony is 1980s era. With RAM being cheap
today, it seems they purposely held this machine back necessitating
more dollars being spent on a good quality rack module. It has a
built in USB port and editing software that works on Macintosh. The
layout is good - backlit screens are easy to see. It has full size
keys instead of those awful minis. It has a built in microphone. It
would look great sitting next to a Mattel Synsonics drum kit!

Pokey

.